Shielding Blair (Special Forces: Operation Alpha): A Fierce Protectors Novella Read online

  Shielding Blair (Special Forces: Operation Alpha)

  A Fierce Protectors Novella

  Casey Hagen

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Books by Casey Hagen

  More Special Forces: Operation Alpha World Books

  Books by Susan Stoker

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 ACES PRESS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.

  Dear Readers,

  Welcome to the Special Forces: Operation Alpha Fan-Fiction world!

  If you are new to this amazing world, in a nutshell the author wrote a story using one or more of my characters in it. Sometimes that character has a major role in the story, and other times they are only mentioned briefly. This is perfectly legal and allowable because they are going through Aces Press to publish the story.

  This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I might have assisted with brainstorming and other ideas about which of my characters to use, I didn’t have any part in the process or writing or editing the story.

  I’m proud and excited that so many authors loved my characters enough that they wanted to write them into their own story. Thank you for supporting them, and me!

  READ ON!

  Xoxo

  Susan Stoker

  About the Book

  Evan Brooks is a world away from life-shattering memories made during his time as a SEAL. No matter how hard he tries, despite the time and distance from his dark past, his failures find him, haunt him, stealing what happiness he manages to find. When he meets Blair, a loving woman with a huge heart, he’s drawn to the constant glow of happiness that she exudes. Terrified the shadows of the past will change her, he does the only thing he can and walks away.

  At least, he tried, until an arsonist rears his ugly head and sets his sights on Blair in a bid for revenge.

  Blair Sullivan’s life has taught her all about loss with the death of her mother and dreams that hover just out of reach. So when Evan pulls turns broody and distant, she lets him go. Life is too short to chase a man so hell bent on getting away. She knows her worth and won’t settle less for a man that cherishes her. Making the best of the cards dealt, she settles in as a kindergarten teacher at Frederick Elementary indulging in her greatest love—children.

  Forced proximity to Blair in order to keep her safe brings the demons lurking in Evan’s past to the forefront where neither he, nor Blair can escape. When history repeats itself, can he get there in time to change the outcome?

  Chapter 1

  “I don’t know what you did, but Chief Sullivan called here three times this morning looking for you. You answer the phone next time,” Dylan said with a jerk of his chin from behind his desk.

  “I didn’t do shit,” Evan muttered, tossing the notes from their latest completed case onto the desk in front of his partner and all-around pain in the ass.

  Okay, so he did do something.

  Blair’s face popped into his head, her head tilted, female adoration oozing from her piercing, sage gaze.

  He closed his eyes and shuddered.

  No, just no.

  Dylan gave him a hard look, his mouth twisted into a smirk Evan recognized all too well. The same smirk Evan had given him a hundred times over each time Dylan fell a little harder for his wife, Harlow.

  Payback sucked.

  “Hey, I had to string her along a bit so Cole could have access to that arson scene for the Statler case. You should have my back. I’m in this mess because of my dedication to the job.” Evan tossed the words over his shoulder as he headed for the Keurig.

  Fact of the matter was, Fierce belonged to all four of them: Dylan, Evan, Cole, and Slyder. It hadn’t been that way in the beginning since their protection/investigation business had been started by Dylan, but within the first year, Evan and Cole had matched Dylan’s investment, and a year after that, they’d lured Slyder and a good portion of his savings on board. With four equal shares, they secured a four-way partnership.

  While majority ruled, with an even number of partners sometimes creating a tie vote, as former SEALs, they all had the same dedication to making their business a success and never once had any of them given less than their all.

  “You’re in this mess because of your dick,” Dylan said with a merciless laugh.

  Actually, no, he wasn’t. His dick never got anywhere near her.

  Okay, so near was a relative term. The point was, he’d kept it in his pants because he’d recognized the lust for happily-ever-after in Blair’s eyes, and he didn’t have a chance in hell at being what she needed and deserved.

  Not that he wanted serious anyway. Been there, done that. It took him three years to climb out of the financial hole of the single biggest wedding fail in the history of his home state, Montana.

  Blair had been built for wraparound porches, white picket fences, and a brood of children playing at her feet.

  Which meant she hadn’t been built for him.

  And after the way his ex had lied about her wants and needs until she stood before him in the white dress, a wedding party of twenty surrounding them, and two hundred guests bearing witness to his humiliation, he would cut off his own arm before he ever led someone on the same way.

  Dylan cocked a hip against the table and lifted his steaming mug to his lips while Evan waited for the sluggish machine to begrudgingly dole out his cup of dark brew.

  “While I appreciate your loyalty and sacrifice, you and I both know that you wouldn’t have taken the hit for the team if you were in any danger of leading her on,” Dylan pointed out followed by a slurp of his coffee, the sound like an ice pick right between Evan’s eyes.

  Evan scratched his neck and winced. “Yeah, well, I might have underestimated her interest. I knew the family barbecue was another step after I arrived, but I didn’t realize she had already looked into monogrammed towels.”

  Dylan choked, a grating sound between a snort and wheeze coming from his sinuses. “Come on. It couldn’t have been that bad. Right?”

  “She left her laptop open while she was finishing up getting ready to go out. It wasn’t pretty,” Evan said as the final glug of the machine signaled his salvation.

  “That’s what you get for being nosy.”

  Evan tipped his cup back, satisfaction for the caffeine and regret for the scalding burn filling him. “Being nosy is what gets the job done.”

  The front door slammed open, the sound of rattling glass snapping t
hem both to attention. Coffee sloshed over the back of his hand. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered as he dropped the cup to the table and grabbed for a stack of napkins.

  “I’ve got it.” Dylan slipped around the corner and out of view, buying Evan a minute. If he was lucky.

  “Chief Sullivan,” Dylan said, a tinge of amusement lacing his voice.

  “North,” Chief Sullivan said, his voice curt. “That boy can’t avoid me forever, and I plan to stay right here until he shows himself. No more hiding.”

  “Evan, it’s for you,” Dylan called.

  “Shitbag,” Evan muttered, tossing the napkins in the trash.

  He joined them around the partition separating the coffee area and waiting room from the front entry. Evan nodded. “Chief Sullivan.”

  “I expected more from you, boy. A grown man and dodging me?” The chief blustered the words, his face turning redder by the second, and his hard eyes looking Evan up and down.

  “I assure you, Chief Sullivan, that’s not what he was doing. He’s been on a case in—”

  Evan held up a hand and shook his head. While he appreciated Dylan’s willingness to cover for him, the chief was right. He’d been dodging him. And at thirty-four years old, and a former SEAL that had made a career being in the forefront of every mission, the fact that he had ducked the guy didn’t sit so well in his churning gut.

  “I imagine you’re here to talk about Blair?” Evan said, just wanting to get this shitshow over with. The showdown he’d had with his ex-fiancée’s father hadn’t faded in the five years since his wedding day, but at least he’d been on the side of right back then.

  Today? Well, he thought he had been, by cutting things off and not letting Blair get her hopes up.

  So why didn’t I just face her dad when he started calling almost a week ago?

  Because I’m an asshole.

  The chief’s chin jutted out as he straightened and clenched his hands into fists at his sides as if ready to throw a right-hook at the slightest provocation. “You’re damned right I am.”

  At six two, Evan stood at least four inches taller than the chief. He likely outweighed the man, despite the over-sixty paunch, by thirty pounds of muscle built from years of rigorous missions where he clawed his way toward life through dirt, mud, water, snow, and God knows what else all while the Grim Reaper snatched for his ankles.

  Evan didn’t have to take a punch. Despite his size, he had always been quick on his feet and even the fuel of a father’s rage wouldn’t be enough to catch him off guard.

  Blair’s soft skin crept into his mind, the way it glowed under the kiss of the sun, the velvety feel under his fingertips as he traced the strap of the flirty sundresses she loved to wear.

  The innocent skin of a gentle woman eight years younger, a woman he had no business touching.

  With the memory a living reminder of all the times he almost gave in to temptation, he knew he’d take the hit. He deserved it. He’d known by the second date that they’d go nowhere and still he went on a third, fourth, fifth…like a man in the dessert under the searing sun, continually drawn to an oasis of cool water.

  They stood there, gazes locked, until the chief sagged under an invisible burden, his eyes glossing over. “She’s in danger,” he choked out.

  The hair on Evan’s neck prickled as his blood surged and muscles tightened. “You’re sure?”

  The chief scrubbed a hand down his face, and Evan would swear the motion left the man ravaged by worry and aged another ten years. “Yes.”

  “Follow me,” Evan said as he headed for his office.

  Evan rounded his desk and gestured to the chair across from him. Dylan slid into the room and leaned against the wall, all vestiges of kidding gone, replaced by the assessing concentration of a soldier.

  The chief slumped in the seat and ran a rough hand through his hair. “I know you’ve broken up. Blair wouldn’t tell me what happened, but right now, I don’t care. I need someone I can trust, someone who cares about her well-being to stay close.”

  “So you chose the guy who broke things off with her?” Evan asked.

  “My Blair is a remarkable woman. I know it. You know it. I suspect it had something to do with you walking away. I can’t fault you if you recognized that you’re not good enough for her.”

  Ouch.

  “Why do you think she’s in danger?”

  “I couldn’t be sure at first, but important places, ones I’ve taken her to over the course of her childhood have been hit by arson,” he said as he reached into the lining of his jacket and pulled something out of the pocket.

  “That’s a hell of a leap to make from that to Blair’s in danger,” Dylan said from behind them.

  The chief turned to Dylan with a nod. “I thought so at first, too. Until I found this on my desk,” the chief said, turning back to Evan and handing him a picture with a shaking hand.

  Blair stood with her arms wrapped around her dad’s torso, her head pressed against his chest as she smiled at the camera. Happiness jumped from the image as the grin and her apple cheeks squeezed her eyes almost shut.

  All of that love surrounded by crisp, singed edges where someone had worked their way around the photo with a flame, scorching the glossy paper.

  Evan ran his fingertips over Blair’s face, catching the indent of writing scrawled on the back. Flipping it over, he read the words.

  You took mine, now I’ll take yours.

  A dull roar rose in his ears. All the reasons he’d backed away from Blair vanished under the threat of harm.

  He’d been the danger to her before. His scars, the burden of death from the men he’d killed over the years for his country, and his limited ability to trust threatened the goodness and light in her.

  Now, in the face of danger, he had no choice but to step in and guard her light with his darkness.

  He’d pray the burden of his demons didn’t dim her shine.

  He’d had his shot at forever with someone who knew the score. Someone who’d lived it.

  Until forever had walked away.

  If he couldn’t hold on to someone in the military, who knew the sacrifice, the pain, he didn’t stand a chance in hell at hanging on to Blair.

  He’d dance on a dangerous edge, and he’d do everything possible to keep Blair’s feet firmly on the ground as he did so she didn’t take this as a sign of a future together that would never come.

  “Tell me everything you know. Dates, places, people you remember talking to, past and present arson cases, family, friends, and coworkers. No detail is insignificant,” Evan said, reaching for his legal pad and pen.

  “That could take a while,” the chief said.

  “Is Blair in class today?” Evan asked.

  “Yes,” the chief confirmed.

  “Good. Then you’ve got…” Evan glanced at his watch, “…six hours before I have to leave for the school so I can make sure I’m there when she gets out.”

  He shot a glance at Dylan. “We’re going to need Cole and Slyder.”

  “I’m on it,” Dylan said with his cell phone already in hand.

  “I’m hoping since this is in a baggie, you were careful about preserving evidence?” Evan said, setting the bag next to him.

  “I was,” the chief said as he wrung his hands. “Evan, promise me you won’t let anything happen to her. I lost her mother years ago, if I lose her…” he said, his words clogging as emotions threatened to choke him.

  No promises. They’d always been told to make absolutely no promises. Evan couldn’t bring himself to say the word, but also couldn’t look the man in the eye as worry and fear tore at him, without giving him something.

  And in that moment, Evan would lay his life down before he’d let anyone or anything harm her. “You won’t lose her. Not on my watch.”

  Chapter 2

  Evan pulled up at the back edge of the car loop at Frederick Elementary and glanced at the clock.

  Fifteen minutes before the bell would ring
.

  Rolling down his window, he sucked in a breath and soaked in the fresh, sunny scent of Long Beach, and the lingering aroma of salt that danced on the warm breeze in this section of town only being five blocks from the beach.

  And no matter how hard he tried, the sun, the warmth, the clean whoosh of air rolling over his skin did nothing to assuage the volcano brewing inside him.

  He’d practiced this routine of soaking in the little things thousands of time since leaving the SEALs and still he sucked at truly appreciating it. Instead, it only reminded him of the beast inside, chomping at the bit, ready to fight.

  In this case, shield.

  The swift and powerful feelings were new to him in this line of business where he’d managed to maintain a professional detachment from their clients. The military had been the opposite; living on the edge of danger, he stayed coiled at the ready for anything at any time.

  He’d been trained to.

  And he’d thought he’d left that shit behind with his combat boots.

  No matter what he did, how he changed on the outside, some things were forever no matter what you did to scrub them away for good.

  At least since joining Fierce, he’d been able to breathe, to use logic and tactic far more often than brawn.

  He’d hustled his ass to get out of the office and over to the school without getting a chance to create an attack plan for sifting through the mountain of information Chief Sullivan gave them.

  Luckily, Cole and Slyder had shown up inside of thirty minutes that morning once Dylan called them in, and as the details poured out, they made notes, charts, and lists on Evan’s whiteboard just the way Evan would have done himself if he had eight more hands and his insides hadn’t locked in a knot of worry and rage.